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May 17, 2013 This week's theme Verbs This week's words ensconce equivocate petrify impute exscind Add your 2¢ worth to this week's theme and words. Or, if you wish, use paise, pence, yen, pesos, piasters, etc. Log on at our discussion forum Wordsmith Talk A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg exscind PRONUNCIATION: (ek-SIND) MEANING: verb tr.: To cut out or off. ETYMOLOGY: From Latin exscindere, from ex- (out) + scindere (to cut). Ultimately from the Indo-European root skei- (to cut or split), which also gave us excise, schism, ski, shin, scienter, and adscititious. Earliest documented use: 1662. USAGE: "The knife skipped off the stone and almost exscinded Shih Te's index finger." Alexander Goldstein; The Foundling; Trafford; 2009. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. -William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)

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